Miner accuses police of corruption

May 19, 2009 News

---

– seeks audience with Commissioner

After learning about a boast that the police will be paid off, a city businesswoman is convinced that that is exactly what happened after investigators allegedly misplaced statements from an alleged con artist.
Simona Broomes, who is in the mining business for more than 20 years, is seeking an audience with the Police Commissioner to highlight the possible corruption regarding the misappropriation of more than $1.5M by a man who she had entrusted to conduct her business.
“Everyday I look in the papers I see that the Commissioner is fighting corruption within the force. So now I want to tell him about my situation,” Broomes said yesterday.
Broomes owns three mining blocks at a place called Honey Camp, Issano.
According to the businesswoman, in April last year she was approached by two men, one of whom she knew previously. She said that the man offered to oversee her blocks, to ensure that no one operates there without paying her royalties.
After agreeing to the terms of the arrangement, Broomes communicated this to the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC).
A few months later she learnt that the men had been permitting persons to work her claims and were collecting royalties without her knowledge.
She again wrote to the GGMC, this time advising that the men were no longer permitted to act on her behalf. Her husband subsequently traveled to the area to investigate.
Contact was made with one of the men who denied the allegations.
But in October last year, Broomes received a telephone call from another miner who owns claims in close proximity to hers, informing her that the practice was still being continued by the men.
In addition, the men were also permitting persons to work on the other miner’s claim. Broomes told this newspaper that she was informed that the man whom she had initially contracted to act on her behalf had been giving receipts to persons from whom he had collected monies to allow them to operate on her claims.
All the time the man was telling persons that he was acting on Broomes’ behalf and was handing the monies over to her.  Armed with this information, Broomes contacted the police and together with her son and two policemen, they went to the area and confronted one of the men.
To her surprise, some of the persons who were found working on her claim produced receipts that were given to them by the man to prove that they had paid him royalties totaling $1.562M.
The man was detained and taken to the Bartica Police Station where he gave a statement in which he reportedly admitted collecting monies on Broomes’ behalf.
He even told police that he had lodged $400,000 at the Parika Police Station, which he said was a part of the money he had collected for Broomes.
The businesswoman subsequently uplifted that money from the police and the man was placed on station bail.
But then strange things began to happen.
The man never returned to the police as was arranged and according to Broomes, she got word that the man had boasted that nothing would come out of the matter since he would pay the police.
She contacted the then Acting Crime Chief who assured her that justice would prevail in the matter.
Weeks passed and nothing happened.
Broomes said that earlier this year she was at the GGMC main office when she saw the man’s accomplice and she immediately contacted the police who came promptly and arrested him.
However, this accomplice who also gave a statement to the police, claimed that he had given all the royalties collected to his accomplice, who had promised to pay Broomes.
“He said that he really thought that the man had given me the money,” Broomes told this newspaper.
On Labour Day she finally laid eyes on the number one suspect in a city supermarket.
However by the time she summoned the police and they arrived he had made good his escape.
The man was captured a few days later in the city and during a confrontation said that he offered Broomes $176,000 which she refused.
He was handed over to police from the interior division. He then reportedly changed his story, claiming that the $400,000 that was handed over to Broomes at the Parika Police Station was all he had collected.
But according to Broomes, the police have copies of receipts from persons who paid the suspects monies totaling $1.692M.
This is when Broomes began to suspect that there was some collusion between the man and the police.
According to the businesswoman, the investigating ranks who claimed to be new to the case informed her that they were unable to locate the initial statements, in which both men admitted collecting monies on her behalf.
She said that when this was related to the Divisional Commander he was livid, since he was already informed about the woman’s recent concerns that the police would have compromised the matter. “This is not the first time that I am a victim of lost statements by the police. Up front I had heard that the man would pay the police and now I am convinced that this is the truth. They found my statement but they can’t find the others,” Broomes told this newspaper.
She said that she has no idea if the suspects have been charged since the police has not contacted her.

---

---